Finally dealing with the front garden

For the past few years, almost every spare hour has been spent somewhere behind the house.

How it turned out

That's where the vegetable garden has slowly taken shape, bed by bed. It's where the orchard has started to grow, where the chickens have their run, and where I've spent countless weekends building an outdoor kitchen and a canning station.

The front garden, on the other hand, never seemed to make it to the top of the list.

It wasn't that I didn't like it. It was simply... there. A large open space that we walked through every day without giving it much thought.

This spring, I decided that had to change.

The idea started with a pile of old pallet collars.

I like building things from materials that already have a story, and these seemed perfect. One by one, I turned them into planters and began arranging them around a small table near the entrance.

Work in progress

At first, it looked more like a building site than a garden.

There were bags of compost everywhere, empty pots scattered across the gravel, and I spent half the day moving the planters a few centimetres one way, only to move them back again an hour later.

I'm sure every gardener knows that feeling.

Sometimes the hardest part isn't planting.

It's deciding where to stop.

The plants themselves were nothing remarkable in the beginning.

A few herbs. Some young flowers.

A handful of small shrubs that looked rather insignificant against such a large space.

Looking back at the photos from April, it's hard to believe how much changed in just a few months.

Nature has a wonderful habit of rewarding patience.

Week by week the flowers grew taller, the herbs began spilling over the edges of the planters, and before long the bees had discovered the garden.

Then came the butterflies.

Now, when I walk through the gate, I can hear the gentle hum of insects before I notice anything else. That sound tells me I've done something right.

One thing I've realised since moving to Spain is that not every corner of a garden has to produce food. For a long time, I measured success by how many tomatoes I could harvest or how many jars I could line up on the pantry shelves.

I still love that part of gardening. But somewhere along the way, I started appreciating the spaces that feed something else.

The bees.

The butterflies.

The birds.

And perhaps ourselves.

There's something strangely comforting about sitting with a cup of coffee, surrounded by flowers, before the day begins. It doesn't fill the pantry, but it fills something just as important.

The front garden still isn't finished. In fact, I hope it never really is.

Gardens have a habit of changing your mind.

A shrub that looked perfect in spring might eventually find a better home somewhere else. A tree that seems too small today will one day cast enough shade for a chair beneath it. New ideas appear almost as quickly as new seedlings.

I've stopped chasing the idea of a finished garden.

Instead, I'm trying to enjoy watching it evolve.

Sometimes people ask me what our plans are for this little farm.

The truth is, I don't have a master plan tucked away in a drawer somewhere.

Most of it grows the same way the plants do.

One idea leads to another.

A path appears because we've walked the same route a hundred times.

A flower bed is planted because it feels like the right place.

A seating area appears because one evening you find yourself wishing there was somewhere to watch the sunset.

Little by little, the property begins to shape itself.

Not into the garden I imagined when we first bought the house.

But into the one that feels right for us.

And I think that's far more satisfying.

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